No, Issa Rae Isn’t Trying to Make Black Men Gay

By Michael Arceneaux

January 02, 2018

It’s 2018, beloveds. Let’s celebrate bisexual representation.

Issa Rae has been making phenomenal use of the first look producing deal she signed with HBO in 2016 — helping the premium cable network and the television medium collectively broaden its depictions of Black people. She’s developing a yet-untitled drama about a Black family in tumultuous, 1990s Los Angeles, as well as Sweet Life, a coming-of-age series based on the lives of well-off Black teens. But it’s Him or Her, a half-hour comedy about a bisexual black man that has spurred the most chatter online — among the most prejudice-harboring sectors anyway.

Him or Her, to be penned by its co-executive producer and brainchild Travon Free (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Daily Show), will reportedly “chronicle the dating life of a bisexual Black man and the distinctly different worlds and relationships he finds himself in.” When I read about it, I was elated for Free and Rae, and happy to see that a community of Black men who are largely absent from the pop cultural zeitgeist will have the opportunity to have their stories told by one of their own.

In 2011, Free wrote a piece for Queerty entitled “Travon Free Is An Actor, Athlete, Comedian, Brother, Frat Boy. Oh, And Bisexual.” In it, he writes about the turmoil he faced about his sexuality due to religion, the community around him, among other societal pressures. “From the time I began to develop a sexuality up until the age of about 20, my life felt like oil in a world made of water,” Free said of his bisexuality. “The two don’t mix very well if at all.”

As for stigmas so often associated with bisexual men i.e. “they’re greedy” or “secretly gay,” Free wrote: “Because bisexuals live like unintentional double agents with one side always in the closet depending on whom you date. But I’m no different than anyone else really. Bisexuality doesn’t affect my driving habits, my vision, or when my bills are due.”

Unfortunately, as soon as the announcement was made about Him or Her, I was reminded of how close-minded and ignorant a certain wing of straight Black men can be. As I pursued one of my favorite online outlets — The Shade Room — I saw that Rae was featured in their “clap back” segment, where celebrities responded to their online critics. The person Rae responded to was a critic regurgitating a popular simple Negro folklore (I’s Black so I can say this, beloveds) about those who dare to represent Black men in a way that’s not heterosexual and other attributes that fall under the scope of what most would define as “masculine.”

The exchange, as documented on The Shade Room's Instagram, went as follows:

Photo by The Shade Room

Free has been subjected to bigoted messages on social media, too. On Thursday, someone tweeted him: “The black male community dont want that fruity ass show bruh. Keep it. Take thay gay shit to the gay network”

I’m all too familiar with this asinine talking point. Depending on the media appearance or article I’ve penned, I might be met with an email or comment that I am helping contribute to the emasculation of the Black man. I hear such nonsense from the Black Israelites — Black Christians who profess that African slaves were the Jews spoken of in the Bible as “God’s chosen people, the true Hebrews" — whenever I walk by the 125th Street CVS in my Harlem neighborhood on any given Sunday. I’ve heard this from other Black men and women who may be nowhere near as fringe as the Black Israelites but, nevertheless, also buy into the idea that certain types of men are contributing to the downfall of Black manhood collectively.

I’ve even heard this from people I’m related to by blood. They sincerely think “the white man” has somehow co-opted my brain, “turned me gay” and now I am doing the work of massa trying to ruin the Black family and a bunch of other nonsense.

It is hard to argue with the notion that Black men have not been emasculated in American history through systemic oppression. It's understandable to see why some would want to defend Black men and Black manhood from outsiders. However, taking up homophobia, biphobia, sexism, misogyny and continuing to perpetuate stale dogma, that anything that deviates from cis-heternormative depictions of Black manhood is ruining us is not defending Black manhood. It's just parading patriarchy and trying to silence those of us who deserve as much representation as anyone else.

No, no, and no, this does not mean Black people are more homophobic, transphobic, or biphobic than other races and ethnicities, but this mantra among far too many fools is tiresome all the same. And sadly, it reminds me that once Him or Her premieres, for all the good conversations I anticipate it sparking, I do know there will, too, be obnoxious comments about how it is failing Black men, and thus, Black people altogether for daring to not solely talk about straight Black men. You know, because we don’t have enough conversations about them already in media and entertainment.

Yet, to Free’s point, someone has to be daring. Someone has to offer a more complete view of Black manhood — in his case, what bisexuality for many Black men looks like as opposed to the more cartoonish portrayals we’re accustomed to. Someone has to be progressive.

Fortunately, Issa Rae, Travon Free, and HBO are now creating such a space. The idiocy will abound, but for all stupidity that is sure to come, I look forward to ignoring as much of it as humanly possible. Because those fools don’t matter. Because I’m confident more people will enjoy rather than complain. Because if any straight Black man is so close-minded that he thinks wider representation is conspiracy rather than progress, he is worthy of nothing but a muzzle, a mute, and/or a social media block. Because frankly, if they hate bisexual and gay Black men that much, they should go focus on those they claim to care so much more about.

Kudos to Issa, Travon, and HBO for what’s to come, and fuck those who can’t see the vision.

Michael Arceneaux is a writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the failing New York Times Magazine, The Root, Elle, Complex, Teen Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Esquire, among others. Additionally, he's run his mouth for networks such as Viceland, MSNBC, VH1, and BET. His first book, I Can't Date Jesus, will be released July 2018 via Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, although he still hasn't told his mother the title.